Canadian Sex Workers Are Speaking Out Against The Conservativesâ Prostitution Law

By Ishmael N. Daro

Half a year after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the countryâs prostitution laws as unconstitutional for failing to protect sex workers, the Conservative government is set to pass new legislation that will probably make the problem worse.

The previous laws allowed sex work but criminalized brothels, communicating in public with clients, and âliving on the availsâ of prostitutionâa clause targeting pimps and other third parties. The court ruled that such restrictions jeopardized the safety of sex workers by denying them the ability to work indoors, properly vet their clients, and hire drivers and bodyguards.

And so we have Bill C-36, wrapping up marathon hearings at the House of Commons justice committee this week. The proposed legislation makes it legal to sell but not to buy sex, and is broadly based on the âNordic modelâ pioneered in Sweden, which many view as a compromise that respects sex workers while still recognizing prostitution as an inherently exploitative industry that harms women.

The problem, though, is that many sex workers hate the bill. In addition to targeting purchasers of sex, C-36 also bans most advertising for sexual services and working anywhere âwhere persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present.â That effectively forces prostitution into less populated, isolated parts of town where sex workers are more at risk.

Jean McDonald, executive director of the Toronto sex workers advocacy group Maggieâs, says the governmentâs approach is one that âsees all prostitutes as damaged, as victims, and all sex work as âviolence against women.ââ

âSocial inequalities abound in all industries, but we donât (attempt to) abolish those industriesâwe need to address the social inequalities at their root,â McDonald told VICE in an email this week, shortly after speaking to the justice committee.

Maggieâs is an organization comprising sex workers of all stripes, from strippers and massage workers, to porn actors, escorts, and street-based sex workers. McDonald says that in her experience, there is nothing inherently violent about prostitution, but other social ills like sexism, racism, transphobia, and poverty lead to violence against people in the industry who are marginalized and stigmatized for their work. Being treated only as victims further increases that stigma, she said.

To be fair, there have been gut-wrenching stories from former prostitutes this week in Ottawa from women who were trafficked, beaten, tortured, and raped for years before finding a way out. But from a practical standpoint, those are already crimes, and itâs unclear what Bill C-36 would do to prevent such exploitation.

In fact, by pushing street-based sex workers further to the margins, the law would probably increase the likelihood of violence and coercion. Those were the findings of a recent study in Vancouver, where police have been following a Nordic approach to prostitution for almost two years.

"The general public doesn't really understand how sex workers screen clients and how important it is,â a Toronto sex worker who goes by Andrea told VICE in a phone interview this week.

Andrea, like many sex workers, advertises her services online and does significant groundwork before anything sexual ever happens. She asks for references from other sex workers to learn if the experience was safe and whether that previous provider would see the client again. And if itâs someoneâs first time, Andrea asks for a real name, work information, and a cellphone number, taking the time to meet in a public location like a coffee shop or hotel lobby, just to suss things out.

But she calls Bill C-36 âa gift to predatorsâ because many safe clients would be scared away by the new law.

"If clients are worried about being criminalized then they're not going to give me any information,â she said. âThey won't give me a reference because that's admitting to committing a crime, and they won't want to give me their real names."

The proposed law would also make her less likely to call police if anything goes wrong, she said.

âBecause my indoor location is where I work, so if I suddenly reveal my working location to the police they'll be able to stake it out and find out all my clients and just arrest them,â she said. "People don't realize the way sex workers operate so it's hard for the general public to understand how these laws will affect the work."

Now in her late 20s, Andrea has been a sex worker for five years and says the stereotypes about her line of work are maddening. She says most of the time she's sitting at home in her pyjamas responding to emails, doing laundry or other mundane tasks. She enjoys her job but itâs just that: a job.

Another young woman in Toronto, who goes by Olivia, echoed that sentiment. She worked with an agency and later at massage parlours before âgoing indieâ and doing her own advertising.

âI got started [doing sex work] after I had worked a square job which paid me slave wages. $300 was considered a good weekly salary,â Olivia wrote in an email to VICE. âNow I make that in an hour.â

She, too, was shocked by the governmentâs restrictive prostitution bill, especially since many people expected the Supreme Court decision to be followed by decriminalization of the sex industry. Instead, the Conservatives are hell-bent on trying to end prostitution, as Justice Minister Peter MacKay has said, even though historically thatâs been a losing battle for anyone whoâs attempted it.

Both women said they were not out as sex workers, although close friends and family know and are fine with it.

âI don't really want to out myself because I have a school life, I have a personal life,â Olivia said. âOtherwise I would readily have stood up before Parliament as #notyourrescueproject.â

The Supreme Court gave the federal government a year to replace the old prostitution laws, and the Conservatives have taken up that challenge with gusto. Unfortunately, they are relying on cheap moralism rather than the advice of legal experts and current sex workers, most of whom prefer decriminalization of the sex industry based on New Zealandâs example.

Itâs also not clear the general public will agree with the governmentâs approach. The government commissioned a public opinion poll earlier this year that costed $175,000, but the results wonât be made available until the end of July, a Justice Canada spokesperson told VICE. By then, C-36 could already be the law of the land, even if most Canadians told the government they disagreed with the legislationâs aims.

Jean Mcdonald of Maggieâs says the governmentâs urgency to pass a flawed bill is political.

âIn my opinion, the Conservative government wants to push through this bill in order to secure support from their Evangelical base and their social conservative supporters prior to the next election,â she said. âThey are doing this at the cost of sex workers lives and well-being. This bill will not protect sex workers, nor does it recognize their humanity.â

Retired dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford has been escorted by security out of a Senate committee meeting after refusing to heed the chair's warning that her allotted speaking time had run out.

The woman who won a Supreme Court challenge to Canada's prostitution laws issued a threat on her way out the door.

"If you pass this bill, I'm going to make you forget about Mike Duffy," she said.

Bedford was supposed to share her thoughts on the Conservative government's response to last spring's landmark Supreme Court decision.

But, less than halfway through the hour-long panel, Bedford was ejected from the meeting.

Outside East Block, surrounded by reporters, she repeated her pledge, and reiterated her opposition to the government's proposed prostitution bill rewrite.

"They're on the attack against strong, independent women who can think for themselves," she said.

Asked whether she knew of any current MPs or senators who use sex workers, Bedford said, "What do you think?"

"I'm not going to answer any more stupid questions."

'Fundamentally flawed bill'

Bedford, one of the three applicants behind the legal challenge that brought down Canada's prostitution laws last December, was testifying before the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee on Wednesday afternoon.

Her co-appellant, Valerie Scott, also appeared before the committee on Wednesday, although not as part of the same witness panel. Scott is the legal co-ordinator for Sex Professionals of Canada.

Although Scott and Amy Lebovitch, who was also part of the challenge, testified before the House justice committee in July, Bedford did not.

She did, however, follow those hearings closely, according to her blog, and predicts that the proposed law will ultimately fail in court, even after it was amended to narrow the ban on public communications to cover only areas in the vicinity of schoolyards, daycares and playgrounds.

"Changes to or removal of clauses from a fundamentally flawed bill are irrelevant," she wrote in July.

"It is flawed in its intent. It will be flawed in its implementation. It is flawed as to whether it is itself legal or constitutional. It is flawed in that it will make things worse for women. Its passage will be a victory for human traffickers and organized crime."

Another court challenge could take years

It could take up to a decade to get a final Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the government's prostitution bill, according to criminal defence lawyer Graeme Hamilton.

Hamilton was one of several lawyers to testify before the Senate committee Wednesday morning.

Dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford prepares to testify at the Senate committee looking into the Conservative government's prostitution bill, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday September 10, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand

Dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford prepares to testify at the Senate committee looking into the Conservative government's prostitution bill, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday September 10, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand

OTTAWA â The controversial, leather-clad woman at the heart of the effort to rewrite Canadaâs prostitution laws delivered an unexpected whip-crack of drama Wednesday among the buttoned-down senators examining Bill C-36.

Terri-Jean Bedford, who calls herself âthe most famous dominatrix in Canada,â was tossed out of Senate hearings on the legislation after exhausting the patience of Conservative committee chair Sen. Bob Runciman.

Bedford was one of three sex workers who successfully challenged the original law before the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated their Charter right to security of the person.

The high court gave the government a year to come up with an alternative.That alternative is Bill C-36, which treats prostitutes as victims, seeking to protect them from almost all criminal prosecution except in circumstances where they are selling sex near a daycare, playground or school.

The bill instead targets pimps and johns, as well as other who profit or trade in sex on an exploitative basis.

Supporters of the bill agree with that narrative, arguing that those in the sex trade are forced into it by systematic issues of poverty, racism and sexism and deserve protection from the law.

And they agree that going after those who are the instigators of the sex trade is a way to better protect those women.

Bedford, however, is not among them â and she made that abundantly clear Wednesday.

Itâs not the purview of the government to tell women when or how they can or cannot sell sex, she argued, whip in hand, as she threatened to expose politicians who supposedly avail themselves of the worldâs oldest profession.

âIf this law passes Iâm going to make you guys forget about Mike Duffy, because Iâve got more information and more proof on politicians in this country than you can shake a stick at, I promise,â she said.

When asked by Liberal Sen. Serge Joyal how the new law might affect her work, Bedford appeared to opt for a show of force.

She cracked her whip on the desk and said the new law would ensure she was back before government in 10 years, arguing the issue anew.

Itâs a point of view echoed by other opponents of the bill, who say that as written, C-36 does little other than create greater dangers for women.

Provisions in the bill against advertising sexual services and any element of criminalization of the sex trade will further push women down back alleys, they argue.

Throughout committee hearings by both the House of Commons and the Senate, some have complained that the concerns of those opposed
to the bill have received short shrift compared to those who support it.

Bedford said as much Wednesday as she tried to describe how much the court challenge has cost her personally. At one point, with her
allotted time running down, Runciman tried to remind her that she needed to wrap up.

âYou have given lots of other people lots of time,â she complained.

âI have 30 years of your abusive laws, so I should be allowed at least an extra five minutes to talk about it. You pet everybody else on the back but when you know Iâve got a bombshell to deliver, you want to try and avoid me at all costs.â

Runciman asked Bedford to respect the rules of the committee, saying if she didnât, heâd suspend the meeting and have her escorted out.

Bedford pressed on, so Runciman banged the gavel to end the hearing. Bedford was escorted out by security.

Later, speaking to reporters outside, she said the government feels threatened by the demise of the old law, which she said was âcustom-designed to hurt, maim and kill women who donât want to have sex for free.â

âThey want to do it again and they want to make matters worse. So, yes â they are on the attack against strong, independent women who can think for themselves.â

The incident was the latest in a series of emotional days before both the Senate and the Commons committee studying the bill.

The issue has show a deep divide among advocates in the sex trade about whether it is work taken on by choice or by circumstance and what the role of the government ought to be in either situation.

France Mahon, who was a law student working with Bedford at the time of the case but is now a lawyer, urged the Senate to see it as an issue of workersâ rights, not womenâs rights.

The debate is about the human rights of women facing extreme desperation, Megan Walker, the executive director of the London Abused Womenâs centre, said during earlier testimony.

âIt is their human rights that need protecting it has always been the human rights of those who are forgotten, those who are silenced that need protecting,â she testified.

âHuman rights are not granted exclusively to those who have the loudest voice in the room.â

Alan Young, one of the main lawyers behind retired dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford's decade-long battle to overturn Canada's prostitution laws, will get the chance to tell a Senate committee what he thinks of the government's proposed rewrite this afternoon.

Watch the hearing live at the top of this page and follow Kady O'Malley's live blog coverage of the hearing.

In an interview with CBC News last month, Young warned opponents of the proposed new law that they may have to be patient in waiting for the right moment to launch a legal challenge.

"It's a lot trickier than people think," he told CBC News.

"There are a lot of people jumping up and down, and saying that it's unconstitutional, and will lead to worse results, but the government was fairly tricky in terms of how they designed it, by at least nominally addressing the Supreme Court concerns, and then grafting on an advocacy concern from a certain abolitionist group."
Terri-Jean Bedford and Alan Young

The reality, he said, "is that what they were left with is basically incoherent â but people who think you're just going to run back to the Supreme Court and get this invalidated don't understand the process."

Like other witnesses who testified before the Senate committee last week, Young predicted that it could take years to successfully shepherd a new challenge through the courts, something he'll almost certainly be asked about during today's hearing.
Police association president also set to testify

His former client made a brief, but memorable appearance during last week's hearings as well.

Midway through her one-hour speaking slot, Bedford was ejected from the committee room after she refused to stop talking on the order of the chair.

Even so, she managed to deliver a not so veiled threat to politicians.

The Vancouver Police Department has extended an olive branch to sex workers.

In a new video, it explains that its focus is on safety, respect, and building relationships with people in the industry.

"The Vancouver police don't believe you are a bad person and won't judge you just because you do sex work," the video states. "In fact, sex work between consenting adults is not an enforcement priority for us."

Instead, its enforcement guidelines zero in on the sex trade when it involves children and youth, violence, gangs, criminal exploitation, and organized crime.

The video also acknowledges that "sex workers have not felt safe to trust the police".

The VPD is hoping that its guidelines will change that and lead to greater mutual respect.

WHEREAS:
-the current Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which prohibits the purchasing of sex, does little to protect sex workers and instead pushes them to work underground and in dangerous conditions;
- the current prohibition of buying consensual sex work does not address the underlying issues that make sex work dangerous, but rather creates a climate that makes sex workers unlikely to work with the police and be involved with more serious crimes;

"BE IT RESOLVED the Liberal Party of Canada repeal the 2014 Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, begin a consultation period with those in the sex work industry and advocacy groups, and move to decriminalize consensual sex work, and the purchase of said sex work, for those over the age of 18;

BE IT RESOLVED the Liberal Party of Canada consult not just with those involved in the sex work, but with surrounding communities to ensure that these changes ensure the safety and wellbeing of these surrounding communities and their families;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that along with decriminalization the Liberal Party of Canada should look to address the true problems facing sex workers by working to increase their access to sexual health clinics, counseling and improve their relationship with local authorities."

Vancouver boykottiert seit 15 Jahren die nationale Prostitutionspolitik, und macht liberale, eigene:
"By 2013, when the Conservative government called for input into new prostitution laws, Vancouver's council was urging full legalization
(with the exception of the purchase of sexual services from minors)."
http://vancouversun.com/opinion/col....ce-on-legalizing-sex-work